CHAPTER FORTY-SIX ( 1 )

THE MATERIAL CULTURE

OF THE CHRISTIANISATION

Anne-Sofie Gräslund

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eferring to the chapter ‘The material culture of Old Norse religion’ (Gräslund,
ch. 18 , above), our question must be: is there any evidence of the Christianisation
to be seen in the material culture as well? Yes, there is, in at least four different fields:
the burial customs, the cult places, the artefacts and the iconography. To this should be
added the evidence of the runestones (see Williams, ch. 21 , above). If we accept the
opinion that the Christianisation was not an event but a process, going on for centuries,
there were of course many possibilities for Christian impact on the material culture,
especially in the phase of mission, starting at the end of the eighth century. The
influences accepted could then be seen as an expression of syncretism, a wish to adapt the
new ideas at the same time as a wish to keep the old ones.

BURIAL CUSTOMS

Starting with the burial customs, this is maybe where it is easiest to discern a gradual
transition, from pagan cremation graves furnished with rich grave goods, artefacts of
various kinds as well as animals, via inhumation graves still with rich grave goods,
through oriented inhumation graves without grave goods, culminating with oriented
graves in churchyards (Gräslund 2000 , 2001 ). It must be noted, however, that it is
very difficult, not to say impossible, to decide whether a specific grave is Christian or
not; instead we have to look at the general tendency of a larger number of graves at a
certain cemetery. It is necessary to qualify the vague term ‘grave goods’. Objects
which the deceased wore or suspended from his/her clothing, including jewellery,
often of impressive quality and variety, knives, combs etc. just imply that he or she
was buried in his/her dress, a custom that continued for a long time in both high and
low social circles. Objects signifying the rank of the deceased could follow him/her
into the grave even in Christian contexts. On the other hand, true grave gifts like
boxes, vessels of glass, metal, wood or pottery, weapons and tools, intended to be used
in the afterlife, must be regarded as conflicting with Christian ideas, as they express a
belief in a bodily life with needs for functional objects from our world. In Gotland
this is clearly demonstrated by the differences between the so-called churchyard graves
from the eleventh century and the contemporary graves in pagan cemeteries: both